Cornered by Celebrity Cunning

So having just finished the comic fueled four day sprint that is Comic-Con, I had the chance to see many interesting things. But there was one person that I never expected to see that I found fascinating to watch.

This person is famous for many things, but most notably for driving a talking car and for running down the beach in a pair of red lifeguard shorts. He has had his fair share of bad press lately, but apparently this has not shaken his core belief in himself. He had the most fascinating way of making people notice him and end up coming over to him, even if they didn’t want to actually meet him.

Step one:
Speak really really loudly with a lot of large arm gestures. This draws the attention of people that are walking by.

Step two:
When he saw that someone had looked over in his general direction, he would smile and say,” It’s ok, come on over!”

At this point the poor baffled person would shake their head and try to gesture that they weren’t going to come over. This causes him to say quite loudly to draw more attention, “No, it’s fine come on over.”

Being cornered by his loudly exclaimed enthusiasm, and not wanting to draw more attention to themselves the people go over to him.

Step three:
He then says,” You can take a picture with me, I’d love too.”
The people say that it’s alright and try to extricate themselves from his grasp. But the celebrity then says,“ Here, she can take our picture”.
Out of no where an assistant jumps out and smiles, so the people give her their camera to not cause more of a scene.
They pose and take the picture, the celebrity smiling and the people quizzically wondering how they ended up taking a picture they didn’t want with a celebrity they didn’t even want to meet in the first place.

I saw this happen a lot! This guy has this down to a science and people were helpless to resist the celebrity cunning.


Also, I heard him complaining to someone about going to a local beach. I missed the beginning of the conversation but this is what I overheard:

“The beaches here are beautiful, but can you believe this? They kicked me off the beach! ME! They kicked me off the beach!”

No response from the people he was speaking with.

“Me?!?! Kick me off the beach? I mean, come on!”

“Why did they kick you off the beach?” someone in the group finally asked. (I would have asked but that wold have been admitting I was eavesdropping and I was afraid to get sucked in the picture trap with him)

“Because I had the dog, but still…come on! You can’t kick me off the beach! I’d save the dog if I had too!”

So, I’d like to point out that you’re only supposed to have dogs at Dog beaches in California. I doubt the lifeguards were concerned with their ability to rescue a dog if it were drowning…..

Best Worst Party Ever

I have been blessed to go to many very cool parties. I have been to parties in Las Vegas that hosted entire circuses’ and I have been to parties in France with ballrooms decorated with live plants in an “Alice in Wonderland“Theme. I know what a good party looks like.

But the party I went to this evening tops them all. So in case you are curious what it takes to throw the best worst party ever, here are my tips for you:

• Hype the hell out of the list of all the confirmed celebrities that will be attending you party and then only have two of them make an appearance.

• However other random celebrities will show up to your party, which is awesome when your security and party staff have no idea who they are or why they are there. (Although to be fair they were all actors I loved and knew)

• Make sure that one of your celebrities comes equipped with a monkey puppet that wears a bra on its head. Ensure that he will use this puppet to speak to people for the duration of the party. (This was an actor I did recognize but did not love)

• Have your event staff make truly terrible and even painful introductions of the celebrities if they happen to get them to the correct location for media.
Example: The staff guy walks up the red carpet and says to the media “This is a guy….from..um….the Scissor Sisters?” with a half hearted shrug before turning around and walking away.

• Invite media to come and publicize your event, but forget to tell security that they are allowed to take pictures. This allows the media to get personalized security escorts who continually try to block them from taking pictures and saying “No pictures” very loudly as the media try to do their job. This is extremely helpful and always leads to excellent publicity for the event.

• Have no food available, but bars everywhere. This allows the attendees to get nice and inebriated but also be starving. So when someone rolls out a small cart with sample sized Dixie cups of ice cream the crowd will descend upon them like sharks in a feeding frenzy.

• Have VIP escorts (made up of the same people who halfheartedly introduced them because they have no idea who they are) who forget to escort the celebrities anywhere they are supposed to go. This allows the celebrities to scatter like a herd of cats.

The poor VIP coordinator was horrified when she realized that none of the celebrities were walked further than the red carpet and were never told where the VIP section was and were left to wander the party. She. Was. HORRIFIED

And last but not least…..

• Have William Shatner interview all of the celebrities that do happen to appear!

Example: I saw two well known actors appear specifically to be interviewed by William Shatner for a web show that Shatner was hosting. (I know this because I was totally eavesdropping)

William Shatner proceed to introduce them by talking about how these are two great actors, and he has worked with many great actors, but not these two actors. But other great actors (enter a monologue about Shatner’s opnion that he is awesome)
The two actors finally get on the stage and William Shatner looks at them and asks them their names and their shows names. The actors answer the question. They turn to Wiliam Shatner anticipating another question.

William Shatner then turns to the audience and says “These two are great actors, but I have to go”. Handed the microphone to one of the actors and exited the stage. These actors were not happy.


How good was this party?
This evening ended with me literally laying down in oncoming traffic

The children are our future.....

So I stepped into the elevator in a parking garage on my way to the theater with some women already in it on the way down to the street level. To see a show that includes full frontal puppet nudity and songs called "Everyone's a little bit Racist" and "If you were Gay". It's safe to say that it is not appropriate for children.

As I happily play with my cell phone this is the conversation I hear:

"I am so glad that we got such a good price on these tickets!"

"I know, but I'm sad because I won't qualify for these prices anymore." the other said with an exaggerated sad shrug.

"Thats ok", the other girl replied while laying comforting hands on her friends shoulders,"Cause I qualify for the ticket prices for the next year."

"I know, but I'm so old!", the other girl wailed," I'm almost 18!"

The other girl looked pained at the mere mention of this incredibly old number. Drawing a bracing breath she turns to her much older, almost 18 year old friend and says," We may be old, but we're really smart and we'll be ok".

We stop at another floor and another person gets on. The scenery must have looked different than what they expected because they both looked confused. The almost 18year old leans over to her friend and asks," Does this elevator only go up and down?"

I know the children are our future, but based on this conversation, I'm scared.

My Husband tried to kill me.....

And what makes it even more impressive is he wasn't even with me when he tried to kill me.

Let me explain....

As everyone who has ever known me is aware, I am not the most graceful or coordinated person that is on this planet. So when I suggested that we or I go zip lining across an arctic forest, did my husband tell me this was a bad idea? Did he give a thought for the small forest creatures, the ancient forest or the people in this group with me and how I could easily wreck havoc on all of them?

NO

Having already been zip lining many times, he knew exactly what awaited me and did not tell me anything about how bad I would be at it!

So off I go by myself to dangle from a single wire with a group of similarly minded, although much more coordinated individuals. While I was alone I did meet three lovely gay men from Texas (as their shirts said “Everything is bigger inTexas, even the Gays") who were very friendly. There were only 7 of us total in the group and we all were naively excited about the adventure we were about to embark upon.

So the training consists of this: get the harness on, the helmet and the gloves (a great look for me, by the way) and they instruct us to hook book the lines from our harness to the zip line. They also tell us to put our legs out straight or tuck them in to go faster. We put one hand on the guide that rolls along the line and this keeps us pointed in the right direction. If we want to slow down reach up with the other hand and skim your hand over the wire. So far this sounds pretty easy.

So the first training zip line is about 10 feet long and I do that in perfect form. I am totally going to rock at this!

Then I look at the next zip and see that it is 150 feet long. Extensive training my ass! Those 10 feet took a second and there was no mention of what to do in an emergency or in case you take out and endangered animal or something. I am literally at eye level with a pair of bald eagles; this is how high up I am in these trees.

Everyone takes off and I am the last on the platform except for one of the guides who is hooking me up. I take off...and promptly forget all of the "extensive training" and start swinging in a circle at 35 mph. I reach up to straighten out the pulley and brake, which almost pulls my arm out of the socket (apparently you should not close your hand around the wire). As I come closer to the platform I try to slow down some more and I stop 5 feet away from the platform. Swell... I now have to pull my heavy ass, hand over hand, until I reach the platform. At this point I vow to diet extensively if I don't have to do that again.

At this point the 11 year old boy (who did everything perfectly and enthusiastically ~ I really didn't like him) says, “Wouldn’t it be cool if someone got stuck in the middle of the line so we see someone have to get rescued?" No kid, don't put shit like that out into the universe.

So half the group goes and now it's my turn. I go, so far so good. Then I hear this weird sound....wait now I'm slowing down. Why am I slowing down?

I try to move my guide and can't.... I have stopped. Mother f***ker!!!!!

My jacket is stuck in the trolley that sails down the line, and I have stopped. My arm is stuck straight up since my jacket has wound itself into the trolley in the guide. So I am now stuck in the middle of the l 600 foot line and there is no possible way I can do this hand over hand thing. Thanks kid

So I can't move and I am hanging by a wire on a wire 185 feet over the forest floor. Umm...help! This is so not cool! My heart is beating a million miles a minute; I am trying to free my stuck arm and am swinging in the breeze. This is not the most fun moment of my life. To make everything worse, because of how I am stuck I can only peer at the forest through the corner of my eye, or look up into the sky. Are those eagles in that tree over there? Are there vultures in Alaska? I’m hanging here like a piece of bait. Was that a bear rambling through the forest underneath me?

I am totally going to die here.

If I were someone else, this would be the perfect opportunity for me to take in the beauty of the forest. I’d notice how the horizon meets the sea and forest, and the clouds drift across the sky or something. However, I can't take in the beauty of the forest, as one might when an opportunity like this arrives. And not just because all I can think of is the many ways I can die from my complete lack of coordination.

Of course when the beauty of said forest is seeing exactly how far you will plummet to your death I guess it makes sense that it’s not something I'd dwell on.

Levi, our front guide comes out and hooks himself to me and unlatches the trolley which causes me to drop from the line and hang there by only one small hook. I know these lines have been field tested to a bijillion pounds of pressure, but one hook separating me from the forest floor is not improving the situation in my mind. Eventually we get to the end and he pulls me to the platform. He is the skinniest man on the planet and he was in charge of bringing me in...Poor guy must have lost a bet or something.

Upon reaching the platform I contemplated my next options. I could live on the platform. There are no stairs or any other ways to get off the platform, other then continuing on. Since I had proved up to that point that I was apparently incapable of doing this correctly, continuing on was not looking like the most likely option. So I could stay on this platform. I could change my name to Butterfly Moonblossom and say I'm protesting the plight of the earth worm, or something.

No? Fine then....

Next zip line up is 800 feet. I pray like I never have before that this is not a repeat of the last experience. I make it perfectly, and the kid gets stuck 10 feet away from the platform. Hah! Take that kid! I'm not the only uncoordinated person in the group anymore! (Is it bad I'm rejoicing that a ten year old was stranded mid-air?)

One of the guides says our elbows are the key to going straight and in good form. Where was this little bit of information during the "extensive training" Mr. Man? I decide to ignore everything they say from now on and go with my new plan; brake when I get close to the end and if I smack into the tree then at least I'll have stopped by the platform.

Now I notice that all this time one of my new friends has taken "hug a tree" to a new literal meaning. His kung fu grip was slowly killing the poor trees. I take refuge that I didn't resort to that. I mean, once I was on the platform I only clung to the wire line, not the tree itself.

3 suspension bridges, and 5 more zip lines and I made it through the course and saw Bald Eagles, a Mama Bear and her cub, and a reindeer. Although I’m not sure if they were there coincidentally or because they were hoping that I would screw up again and they’d have dinner.

At the end of the course we all climb down from the giant trees. I am sure that the guides have never been so happy to see someone go home.

Our bus pulls back to the area where my husband said he would meet me afterwards, I see him sitting on the curb, Starbucks in hand. I get off the bus and run to him and give him a huge hug. I look up at him and say," I was so bad at that I almost died!"

My husband looked at me lovingly and said,"" I figured you would be; that’s why I didn't go".