From the Midwest to Hollywood

So far, I have never seen a celebrity just walking around the streets of Los Angeles. I have, however, attended three events where I saw heaps of celebrities up-close.

A couple of weeks ago, my buddies and I went to be seat-fillers at the MTV Movie Awards. Though the filming started at 5pm, they wanted us there by noon. This meant several hours of standing in line, and thereby gaining a decreased esteem of MTV. However, once we finally got inside, I began to feel more okay about MTV again. Soon after we sat down, we were passed by Paris Hilton and Jessica Alba, each walking a few rows in front of us. Once the show started, the celebrity train was a long one–announcers included Jack Nicholson, Cameron Diaz, Eva Mendez and other big stars. I enjoyed Mike Myers’ performance, and we, the audience, rose to our feet when Johnny Depp arrived to receive his award for best performance.

Last week, my friends Christian and Amanda invited my roommate Brian and me to a screening of the television show Friday Night Lights. We saw several of the cast members being interviewed as we walked up. Then we entered the theater (bedecked with two gigantic statues of the Emmy statuettes) for the viewing. I had never watched the show before, but it was pretty good, and afterward, the director, producers, writers and virtually the whole cast came on stage. After a question and answer session, we were very free to walk down to the front, where all the celebrities were. I just stood there (I can’t really call it mingling), but my roommate Brian, genuinely a big fan, got his picture taken with a couple of different cast members. Here’s a link to one of the pictures:

http://collect.myspace.com/reloc.cfm?c=18&fuseaction=viewImage&imageID=11669082&friendID=12613403&id=

Now last night, Christian and Amanda got my roommate Tim and me invited to an art show opening in Santa Monica. Christian’s description of what the event would be included its location and that one of the members of the Police was involved. He also said we should dress “not smart, but hip.” We got there at about 7:00 and had free cocktails and appetizers. The four of us looked at the exhibits, and the three of us who were not British practiced our English accents. After a couple of hours, I turned around for some reason to look, and there was Sting, getting his picture taken with some guests. Besides Sting himself, I am not really up on the Police, but I believe all the other members were there, too. Soon after we saw Sting, Jeremy Piven walked into the exhibit. To top it all off, two members of our group met someone who they later found out was Orlando Bloom’s cousin.

Some of the celebrities, most notably Carmen Diaz, look amazing in person. Geez. However, others look wholly normal, and the tallest person I’ve seen so far was a German actress I’d never heard of.